Euobserver.com

Italy's prime minister Giuseppe Conte warned on Monday in a dramatic press conference that the two parties governing Italy must put internal differences to rest, or face early elections. The Five Star Movement and the League are at odds over a range of issues, including migration policy, taxes and infrastructure projects. The situation has intensified since the League won 34 percent in the European elections last month.

"The Commission president doesn't have a residence," Jean-Claude Juncker told Bild Zeitung, confirming that he lives in a hotel apartment measuring 50 square metres. Juncker also said he wanted to save money by having fewer commissioners. "There is simply not enough work to keep 28 commissioners busy all day," he said. "I become a eurosceptic at least once a day", he added.

Marking the 30th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square democracy protests, EU foreign chief Federica Mogherini has urged Beijing to "immediate[ly] release" the human rights defenders and lawyers still detained and convicted. "We expect the legal safeguards and due process rights of those detained in connection with the 1989 events," she said, naming six individuals: Huang Qi, Gao Zhisheng, Ge Jueping, Pastor Wang Yi, Xu Lin, and Chen Jiahong.

French president Emmanuel Macron wants the 31 October to be a "final" deadline for Brexit, to avoid the new EU commission, which is sworn in by November 2019, dealing with the UK's departure from the EU. "We now have to implement the British people's decision. Except if the British people themselves decide something else," Macron told a conference on Monday in the Elysee Palace.

For example, Germany's primetime TV news reported that 47 percent of political social media discussions were related to the extreme-right AfD party, when in fact this was the case only for Twitter - used by only four percent of Germans.

Johnson and Farage in charge, a no-deal Brexit, chlorinated chicken in British shops, and privatised healthcare - that is what the UK should heads towards, Trump and his ambassador have said.

Greece's conservative opposition party, New Democracy (ND), is polling to oust the ruling socialist Syriza government in national elections on 7 July, with a lead of around nine percent, according to a Pulse poll published by SKAI on Sunday. Support for ND stands between 31.5 and 36.5 percent compared to 22.5 to 27.5 percent for Syriza. ND secured 12 of the country's 13 regions in local elections on Sunday.

Hungary will "postpone indefinitely" disputed plans for a parallel judicial system to rule in public administration cases, Gergely Gulyas, head of the prime minister's office, told press on 30 May. A motion will be tabled in parliament to postpone the establishment of new administrative courts, he said. The European Parliament voted last year to open an Article 7 procedure which could ultimately strip Hungary of its EU voting rights.

The head of Austria's highest court, Brigitte Bierlein, has been appointed the country's first female chancellor, in charge of a caretaker government until elections in September. Sebastian Kurz's conservative-led coalition government was ousted last week after losing a motion of no-confidence in parliament following a scandal where his coalition partner, the Austrian People's Party, was caught in a secretly-filmed corruption scandal.

The new European Parliament will have 39 percent female members, up from 36 percent in the previous assembly, according to an analysis from the European Women's Lobby for the Guardian. In total, 286 out of 751 seats will be taken by women, when the parliament meets for the first time in Strasbourg on 2 July. Cyprus was the only country not electing any female MEPs.

Leader of the German Social Democrats (SPD), Andrea Nahles, resigned on Sunday after the poor result for her party in the EU elections, where the SPD came third behind Angela Merkel's CDU and the Greens. Nahles became the SPD's first female leader in April 2018 when she replaced former EU Parliament president, Martin Schulz. German chancellor Angela Merkel pledged the coalition government would continue.

Just a week after the European parliament elections, Poland's Peasants Party walked away from a coalition of pro-European opposition parties which did not bring the party as good a result in the EU elections as expected. Peasants' leader Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said conservative voters were not pleased with leftist groups taking part in the coalition. The next Polish parliamentary elections must be held no later than November 2019.

Former Donald Trump adviser and populist campaigner, Steve Bannon's dream of running an academy for ultra-conservatives in an historic state-owned monastery north of Rome has suffered a setback, as Italy's ministry of culture withdrew permission to Bannon's partner, a religious lobbying group Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI), to use the venue. DHI had leased the monastery for 19 years. Bannon promised to contest the decision.

Football clubs today invest huge sums of money in youth development and court talented young players from an early age. Children are the future – not only where football is concerned, but also for society in general.

'Climate, border control - and Margrethe Vestager'. As Danes prepare to vote, the future role of their European commissioner for competition has been added to the domestic election debate.

The UN is looking for another $60m by mid-June to stave off hunger in the Gaza Strip in the hopes of averting another flashpoint. The demand follows a two-day war earlier this month that killed 25 Palestinians and four Israelis.

The EU has no principled stance, nor does it have a coherent strategy in the Arab world.

Before the elections, Spanish MEP Esther Herranz Garcia had been in charge of steering an important agriculture file through parliament. But Herranz is not coming back.

The UN Working Group of Arbitrary Detention has called on Spain to "immediately release" three Catalans imprisoned for their involvement in the independence movement. Oriol Junqueras, former vice-president of The Catalan regional government, and Jordi Cuixart, as well as, Jordi Sanchez - both civil society leaders, have all been in jail for around a year and a half, and are currently in a court case charged with rebellion.

The EU's deputy Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, will lead the trade unit in the EU commission from June, meaning she would oversee future trade negotiations with the UK, the US and help steer policy towards China. The 54-year old German has raised her profile significantly as Brexit negotiator since 2016 and was widely credited for being the ultimate expert on trade and other practical aspects of the Brexit divorce deal.